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GREAT FORTUNES 

THE WINNING: THE USING 

BY 

JEREMIAH W. JENKS, PH. D., LL. D. 

« ■>- 

Professor of Political Economy and Politics, Cornell University 

Author of The Trust Problem, Citizenship and the 

Schools, Considerations on A Monetary 

System for China, etc. 




NEW YORK 

McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 

MCMVI 



1- 



UBR^cRY uf C0NQRCS8 
IWoOouiet. KMelVCd 

NOV 21 1906 

CLASS A 



HiMfy . 






Copyrighty 1906^ hy 
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 



Published, November, 1906, N 



J] 



To 

My Brothers 

To whom I Owe in Good Part my Views on what is 
Right in Business 



PREFACE 

The substance of this book was given in 
lectures on the Adin Ballou foundation 
at Meadville, Pennsylvania, and the main 
thoughts have since been condensed into 
a single lecture at different times and 
places. Some of the auditors have kindly 
suggested that the thoughts herein ex- 
pressed are worthy of a more permanent 
form. The subject at any rate is one that 
must be considered by everyone actively in- 
terested in the welfare of his country ; and 
if these talks can stimulate even to a slight 
degree careful analysis of the motives and 
methods of fortune-getting or thoughtful 
consideration of the methods and motives of 
fortune-using, they will not have been writ- 
ten in vain. 



GREAT FORTUNES 



THE WINNING 

TT has been said that there are ten men living 
••■ in the United States who, if they were wiUing 
to act together, could, within a short time, con- 
trol the fortunes of all the great railroads of 
the country, of the steamship traffic on the 
Great Lakes, of more than one of the great 
trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific steamship lines, 
and of the telephone and telegraph systems. 
They could likewise direct the policy of by far the 
largest part of the mining of anthracite coal, of 
the oil industry, sugar refining, the manufacture 
of steel, the mining of copper, the manufacture 
of linseed oil, even of chewing-gum, and of almost 
any other one or more industries which they might 
decide that they wished to control. These same 
men by combined action now control the most 
powerful banks of the country and are closely 
[3] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

associated with the most powerful banks of Eu- 
rope. They are ready to make loans to govern- 
ments, to finance a nation as they finance a 
corporation. Some of these men are now interested 
in a large way in most, if not all, of the industries 
named, and wherever their interest is small at the 
present time, their financial power is so great 
that by concentrating it on one independent 
industry they can, beyond any question, secure 
control and manage it. The fact that we have 
great financial leaders whose power over industry 
is almost supreme cannot be denied. The extent 
of that power and the small number who may 
exert it is startling. 

A short time ago a man who has been entirely 
familiar with some of the corporation investiga- 
tions of the last year was speaking about the in- 
fluence of these great fortunes in social and 
business life. His talk was extremely pessimistic. 
Some of the managers of the great corporations, 
he thought, seem to have no scruples either re- 
garding the way in which they conduct their 
business or in which they put down sternly all 
opposition. To stifle a government investigation 
[4] 



THEWINNING 

or to ruin opponents, they would resort to any 
means however ruthless, — underselling on market 
or stock-exchange, employing spies, bribing bank 
officials, corrupting legislatures and courts: if 
necessary, even robbing the mails. They seem 
above the law; they defy the courts; they throttle 
justice. Is there any outlook for an improvement 
of present conditions .? he asked. Can the State 
ever control these industrial monopolists, or is 
business, society, even the Government itself, 
to be run in their own interest by a few selfish men ? 
His feeling was doubtless too pessimistic, but 
this feeling is by no means confined to one man. 
The conviction that the owners of great fortunes 
have selfishly abused their power, and that even 
good government is seriously endangered by their 
existence, is wide-spread. Our popular magazines 
have done their share by publishing startling ac- 
counts of corruption in municipalities and in 
states, which, though not impartial, have at least 
much truth in them, while the unprejudiced, 
naked truth, as brought out in judicial investiga- 
tions, has served only to stimulate the feeling of 
doubt and distrust on the part of many. On that 
[5] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

account it is worth while, even though in few 
pages one can do Httle toward offering a solution 
of so grave a problem, to attempt to analyze some 
of the principles which underlie these social 
conditions. 

The Motives for Accumulation 

Psychologists tell us that men's actions are all 
determined by feeling. Knowledge of itself does 
not determine action. We act only to gratify some 
desire. If, then, we are to understand the social 
causes and effects of great fortunes, the good or 
the evil which results from their accumulation 
and from the uses made of them, we must seek 
the impelling motives of the wealth-winners and 
the wealth-users. But we must beware of too posi- 
tive conclusions. Men's motives are not simple. 

We too often fail to realize that very few people 
make far-reaching plans. Most of us drift through 
life. We do not enter business or society with a 
definite end in view and a well formulated plan 
for the attainment of that end. Some of us go far 
enough in our youth to determine that we shall 
become lawyers, or preachers, or merchants, or 
[6] 



THE WINNING 



manufacturers; but beyond that few go, and the 
great mass of humanity goes not even that far. 
If an opening comes for a boy approaching man- 
hood to enter a grocery store, he becomes a grocer. 
K the friendship of a neighbor secures him a 
place as brakeman on a railroad, he becomes a 
railroad man. If the necessity for an immediate 
income is crowding him and he has been a fairly 
good student, he may become a teacher. All of us 
in youth hope and most of us then confidently 
expect, but in a hazy, indefinite way, that we shall 
be successful; but success to most of us is also 
ill-defined and means usually a fair living, a com- 
fortable home, with a glimmering view of prefer- 
ment in business or perhaps even in politics which, 
as the years go by, gradually fades into a satisfac- 
tion with comfort. This shiftlessness or inertia 
on the part of the many gives to the few their 
opportunity. The youth with a positive aim in 
life and a persistent will steadily pushes his way 
under ordinary circumstances through the drift- 
wood of humanity to the accomplishment of 
something far beyond the average, in the direction 
of his desires ; and the rare spirits who, to definite- 
[7] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

ness of purpose and persistency of pursuit, add 
also unusual ability and cool-headed judgment 
of men and affairs, achieve their high purpose. 
So with wealth-getting. We all want wealth, 
though many want other things more. Those who 
speak so freely of the troubles of the rich as a rule 
are the rich; and I have not seen them voluntarily 
making themselves poor. But most of us are not 
very definite in our plans for getting wealth, and 
many of us put other things into the foreground. 
We take what comes to hand in our usual course 
of living. We are easily pushed aside by those 
whose minds are set. We soon fall back with the 
great majority. 

Success of Exceptional Men 

Some few men have apparently a native gift 
for economy not merely of money and wealth, 
but also of time and effort. Such men suffer at 
seeing waste, and gradually from this habit alone 
will acquire a competency. When this habit of 
saving becomes fixed on wealth, and is coupled 
with the power of administration which enables 
one not merely to economize his own time, but 
[8] 



THE WINNING 

by the proper organization of the work of others, 
by planning for future events, by prompt seizure 
of timely opportunities, to employ to the best 
advantage the work of others, success in acquiring 
wealth is assured. And if to this talent for organ- 
ization and administration there be added the 
consuming desire to acquire more and still more, 
with little regard for the means employed or for 
the effect upon others of one's own efforts, the 
prompt returns may be enormous, — unless the 
unscrupulous methods employed are pushed so 
far as to outrage the public conscience, and bring 
the vaulting ambition to sudden catastrophe. 
With most people, however, (we should keep it 
in mind), there is only the hazy intention of 
getting on; with some there is a rather definite 
desire of securing great wealth, coupled generally 
with some dreamy thought of the benefit to come 
from the wealth. 

Even those with definite purpose do not long 
for wealth with only the thought of possession. 
They often wish rather the gratification of vanity, 
or social distinction in some form, or power in 
business, or eminence in politics, or possibly even 

[9] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

the exercise of an influence for good in society, 
from the wise employment of the wealth once 
attained. The picture in the imagination is not 
that of the miser gloating in rags over his 
hoards of gold. It is rather that of the leader, 
prosperous, and honored for the use made of his 
power. 

We are told that Cecil Rhodes, when still a 
stripling, had conceived the purpose of making 
Britain a greater Britain, and of welding together 
all the English speaking peoples into a mighty 
confederacy of friendship, if not of politics, which 
should dominate the business and the politics of 
the world. And it is said that, realizing the advan- 
tages, perhaps even the necessity of great wealth 
for the accomplishment of this purpose, since he 
thought that he could accomplish little toward 
the furtherance of his grand idea unless by his 
wealth he could control the actions of legislators 
and citizens, he thought it wise first to employ 
his great talents in the acquirement of wealth, 
though for wealth itself, except as a means to an 
end, he had little desire. No one questions the 
success of Cecil Rhodes as a wealth-winner; 
[10] 



THE WINNING 

few will question his political genius. It is never- 
theless extremely suggestive to contrast his 
method of pushing forward his social and political 
ideal by speculative, forceful, dominating, even 
corrupt, methods, and the method employed by 
the Founder of the Christian religion in putting 
into the world His germinating ideas of social bet- 
terment through spiritual improvement, — a per- 
sonality with no less definiteness of purpose than 
Cecil Rhodes, no less persistence in effort, with 
even greater genius and foresight and knowledge 
of human nature. He was willing to let His ideas 
germinate and permeate like leaven throughout 
the civilized world. The study of His methods 
and their success from the practical point of view 
are conclusive as to the greatness of His wisdom 
in social reform. 

But we may well analyze the ordinary motives 
somewhat farther. Not many years ago there was 
an interesting interview with one of the leading 
promoters and most active and successful business 
men of New York, a man who enjoyed the good 
things of life, but who was subordinating ordinary 
pleasures, even the comforts and amenities of 

[11] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

home and social life, to the desire for doing things. 
He told first about his various engagements, — ■ 
how from the time he wakened in the morning 
until late at night every minute was definitely 
planned for, his entire time filled with engage- 
ments. He had a telephone in his bedroom that he 
might call business acquaintances at unusual 
hours. Even when he took a little relaxation on 
his steam-yacht on Sundays, he generally had some 
man on board, he said, with whom he was set- 
tling some business arrangement. Then his visitor 
ventured to ask him why he allowed himseK to 
be so enslaved to business. He was wealthy; he 
had more than enough to gratify every normal 
desire, and moreover was a man of sufficient 
culture to appreciate and enjoy the higher 
pleasures of life. Why should he work like a 
galley-slave } He considered the question thought- 
fully for a moment and then said: "I think 
it is partly the habit of working. Then the 
dealing with so great a variety of interests in so 
directly practical a way is in itself a great education 
which interests me on its own account ; but primar- 
ily I think it is because I like to do things. I 
[12] 



THE WINNING 

like the feeling of power which comes from making 
things move." 

I suppose that a similar feeling dominates many 
of the makers of our great fortunes. Habit probably 
does most, combined with an instinct for thrift, 
economy, diligence; but the desire to accomplish, 
the zeal for winning, the lust for victory in contest, 
the feeling of power, have probably more to do 
with the accumulation of the greatest fortunes 
than the desire for wealth itself or the wish for 
distinction or the desire to accomplish great poli- 
tical or social ends through wealth as a means. 
This zeal for "playing the game" and for power 
would lead most easily to dishonorable acts and 
to the selfish hard-heartedness which is so often 
seen in the makers of the great fortunes. 

But always, of course, in the amassing of 
fortunes, there is a mixture of motives, some 
good, some bad, as with all of us in most of 
our acts. This selection of a few that may 
be considered the dominant ones is rather 
to help us to see clearly than to intimate that 
the analysis is complete. But whatever the chief 
motive may be, if it is an eager, insistent one, the 
[13] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

effects are likely to be both good and ill from the 
methods that will be used. Thrift and diligence 
are virtues. Underhanded dishonesty and hard- 
hearted selfishness are vices. All are likely to be 
combined in the eager contest for wealth. 

Methods of the Acquirement of Wealth 

Of course, we must recognize the fact that the 
form of holding property in the shape of stocks 
and bonds, and the ability thus to possess great 
wealth, to use it and to secure the income from it 
without active participation in the management 
of a business, is a modern condition which has 
made possible many of the striking phenomena 
of the later days. Mr. George P. Watkins in an able 
essay, as yet unpublished, has rightly emphasized 
this economic and legal condition which no one 
can afford to overlook, — a condition without 
which our modem methods af wealth-building and 
fortune-using would be impossible. This fact is, 
of course, assumed and understood throughout 
the entire discussion. 

All methods of wealth-getting in society can 
apparently be classified under two main heads: 
[14] 



THE WINNING 

first, the rendering of service to others or to society 
for the sake of an adequate reward in return ; and 
second, the acquirement of gain for one's self at 
the expense of others with practically no service 
rendered to society. 

/. Reward for Service to Society 

The manufacturer, the trader, the shipper, the 
agriculturist, all render definite services to society 
for which they expect, and rightly, a fair reward. 
The manufacturer who changes raw silk into a 
beautiful fabric, the shipper who brings the fruits 
of a milder climate to the tables where they can be 
best enjoyed, the agriculturist who supplies the 
wheat, com and vegetables for a great people, — 
all of them, by changing the form or the place of 
the materials with which they work, give them 
added value and satisfy needs which otherwise 
could not be served. 

It is unfortunate that most of our business men, 
small as well as great, think primarily of the re- 
ward, and only remotely of the service they are 
rendering to society. The service as well as the 
reward should be kept in mind. A vivid realiza- 
[15] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

tion of the fact that they are, or should be, bene- 
factors to society, with the feehng of responsibility 
which should accompany the sentiment of trustee- 
ship to a public trust, would, of itself, prevent 
the evils of fraudulent adulteration of foods, of 
short weights and measures, of secret rebates, 
of unjust business favoritism. That sentiment is 
not yet common, — and yet the fair profit of every 
business man is in essence only a reward or com- 
pensation for a service rendered to society; and 
the compensation is fully justified. 

Like the manufacturer and the agriculturist, 
the so-called professional men, or those who 
render personal services, bring benefits to society; 
the doctor who cures our ills, the lawyer who 
secures for us our legal rights, the servants who 
minister to our personal needs, the politician who 
formulates into rules our plans for social organiza- 
tion, the organizer of business, or the administra- 
tor of public works, who possesses perhaps the 
rarest talent, — all earn and deserve a reward 
from society for the services which they render, 
and they ought to recognize their obligation to 
render the best possible service. 
[16] 



THEWINNING 

No Limit Can Be Placed Upon the Amount Earned 
by Service 
Moreover, it is difficult to see how we can place 
any measure or limit to the extent of the service 
thus rendered, and in consequence, to the reward. 
In most cases there are enough competitors in all 
these lines of business to prevent the making of 
excessive profits, but in many individual cases no 
such limit can be set. An able specialist has, or 
often may have, a kind of personal monopoly in 
each case. It has been a frequent saying of many 
of our social malcontents that all great fortunes 
must be dishonestly gained, because no man 
could himself earn a million dollars ; but any such 
view of the nature of social service is of course 
short-sighted. If I am seriously ill, and one of the 
modem geniuses of surgery can save my life by a 
bold operation, can I set any limit to the value of 
the service rendered to myself ? *' Everything that 
a man hath will he give for his life." If the life 
thus saved were the life of some great genius of 
literature or art or morals or statesmanship, can 
any limit be placed upon the value of the service 
rendered to society.^ Who would venture to esti- 

[17] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

mate in dollars and cents the value of the service 
which Shakespeare or Raphael or Lincoln might 
have rendered to society if his life could have 
been prolonged a decade? It is, of course, not 
practicable for doctors to fix their fees on the scale 
of services thus rendered to society. They could 
hardly venture to estimate the relative values of 
the lives of their various patients. If that principle 
were to be followed, perhaps in some cases they 
should be paid rather for killing than for curing. 
Moreover, no one surgeon has a monopoly of skill. 
Another might do as well, and no one should be 
extortionate. But, without some definite basis, 
we need not be too much surprised at the principle 
which is often employed, of charging in proportion 
to ability to pay. A skilful surgeon charged an 
acquaintance of mine $250 for performing an 
operation for appendicitis on his wife. Some 
months afterward for a like operation on a wealthy 
ward of this same acquaintance he charged $5,000. 
When protest was made, he said, — " I have looked 
into his circumstances; I saved his life; I think 
he can afford it." And physicians generally do so 
much of their work for charity's sake that there is 
[18] 



THE WINNING 

much excuse from the social point of view if they 
take high pay from those who can afford it; and. 
yet another man might do as well at a lower price. 
When, however, a physician doubles his fee if the 
patient dies, on the ground that it is relatively 
easy to collect from an estate, the limit of tolerance 
of the principle of " charging what the traffic will 
bear,'* has, in my judgment, been passed. Society 
itself, if necessary, through a jury, may be the 
judge of what in individual cases is just and 
reasonable pay for the personal and social service 
rendered. 

Not to take the time to estimate the services of 
a lawyer who prepares a constitutional act on 
which the liberties of a people may depend, or of a 
judge whose interpretation of the law may save 
millions of' dollars to the public, or of a statesman 
whose tact and wisdom may save his country's 
honor while avoiding a war that would cost hun- 
dreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of mil- 
lions of property, we may perhaps pause to inquire 
whether any limit can be fixed to the service 
rendered by one of the great captains of industry 
whose genius lies in the organization of business, 
[19] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

because it is these captains of industry whose 
wealth is ordinarily subject to criticism, and not 
the judge and the statesman whose financial re- 
wards are ordinarily, relatively speaking, absurdly 
small as compared with the services they render. 
So far as I can see, no limit can be placed upon 
the value of the service rendered by such an or- 
ganizer of business. Of two great manufacturing 
establishments with equal capital, equally favor- 
able situation, equal excellence of plant, one will 
fail, while the other, with no superiority except in 
the organizing and directing brain of the manager, 
without asking any higher prices for its product, 
without paying any less wages to its employees, 
will make, for its stock-holders, millions. It seems 
difficult to reach any other conclusion than that 
these milHons have been earned by the manager 
through preventing waste of time and waste of 
energy, and that society is by that total amount the 
gainer. 

The experience thus indicated in a manu- 
facturing industry is likewise found in railroad or 
steamship management, or in any other of the 
great avenues of production or exchange. To be 
[20] 



THE WINNING 

sure, in many instances, the skill of management 
seems to be a readiness to oppress the laborers or 
to squeeze the consumers either through higher 
prices or through poorer products, but this is not 
necessarily the case; and often the difference is 
found only in the prevention of waste and in the 
more efficient organization and direction of the 
power of capital and labor. The extent of this ad- 
vantage, of course, depends very largely upon the 
extent of the business. The business may afford 
the opportunity of saving a few thousands, but it 
may equally well afford the opportunity of saving 
millions. 

Concentration and control of industrial power 
does not come by chance nor in the main by 
fraud or crime, although doubtless at times, fraud 
and crime have played their part as they do in 
practically all mundane affairs. In many cases, 
the power comes gradually but surely into the 
hands of those who have known best how to seize 
the opportunities that economic conditions offer; 
who know best so to organize industry and the 
men employed in industry that the largest sav- 
ings, the least expenditure of industrial energy, 
[21] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

will produce the largest results in the produc- 
tion of wealth. These are in good part the men 
who, whatever else they may do, know best 
how to " make two blades of grass grow where 
but one grew before." A prominent cause, 
then, that has brought power and wealth into 
the hands of the few, let us not forget, is the 
fact that these few have been able to render the 
greatest service to society in the way of cheaper 
production, swifter distribution, greater returns 
for capital invested. 

77. Gains at the Expense of Others 

(a) Plunder: There are two or three main 
forms in which gain for one's self at the expense 
of others is secured with no material service 
rendered to society, sometimes with society in- 
jured thereby. It is probable that most of the 
greatest fortunes in the history of the world have 
been made in some such way, although many have 
been made by the rendering of direct service. In 
the ancient days, as we know, many of the greatest 
fortunes were secured directly by plunder. When 
a Roman pro-consul like Verres was sent to Sicily, 
[22] 



THE WINNING 

or a Pompey to Asia, or a Caesar to Spain or Gaul, 
it was expected that he would come back a wealthy 
man. Even the relatively honest, kindly Cicero, 
who boasted that in his government of a province 
he oppressed no one and was beloved by all, made 
some $100,000 in less than one year. Caesar, with 
a daring which characterized him through life, had 
borrowed recklessly to the extent of doubtless 
a million, if not millions of dollars, and even risked 
everything upon his success in securing office; 
but after his appointment to the control of Spain 
and of Gaul, his future was secured not less surely 
from the financial point of view than from the 
military and political. Of course we may well say 
that the pro-consul was entitled to return for his 
work in governing; but probably no one would 
pretend that the returns were in any way suppos- 
ed to be measured by the services rendered, or 
that revenues saved to increase one's personal 
fortune would not, in many cases, if not in most, 
more properly have been turned into the public 
treasury. 

In those days also, as well as throughout the 
Middle Ages, even down into modern times, 
[23 1 



REAT FORTUNES 

wherever an absolute ruler has been able to control 
the fortunes of his people and to levy practically 
at will upon their property, such rulers, besides 
accumulating wealth for themselves, have often 
distributed it lavishly among their favorites. In 
many such cases, great fortunes have been put 
into single hands which have simply been seized 
from others less fortunate. Happily these days of 
direct plunder and of gifts to favorites have passed, 
though those of unjust taxation at times remain ; and 
in our own day many other practices obtain 
which have the same results as plunder, so far as 
any immediate effect upon society is concerned. 

( 6 ) Gambling : In one or two places in the 
civilized world we find great fortunes that have 
been won directly by encouraging gambling. 
The Prince of Monaco could hardly claim to 
be rendering any special service to society in 
the way of an increase of wealth by his great 
gambling establishment at Monte Carlo. The 
wealth which flows into his coffers comes 
from the pockets of others, with a return, to be 
sure, of the gratification of the gambling 
passion, but with no increased value given 
[24] 



THE WINNING 

to society. Doubtless the Prince sometimes 
makes use of part of this wealth more wisely than 
those from whom it has been taken would have 
done; but although he is a scientist and we may 
recognize fully the scientific value of his deep-sea 
dredging, in no proper sense of the word can there 
be said to be any benefit to society from the pro- 
cess of gambling. 

While the boards of trade and the stock ex- 
changes of the United States perform a most useful 
function in the distribution of goods, so far as 
their proper use is concerned ( and let it not be 
overlooked that I recognize to the full their in- 
dispensable services), a very large percentage of 
the so-called "business" of those exchanges is 
still gambling, pure and simple, merely the stak- 
ing of one's opinion against another's as to the 
future price of grain or stocks. Gains and losses 
made in any such way are simply, in effect, the 
transfer of property from the possession of one to 
another with no added value given for any risk, 
and with no service rendered to society, unless it 
be ( as in the case of the gambling that is directly 
known by that name), the fillip to enjoyment 
[25] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

which comes from stimulating the fever of specu- 
lation. But there are grave though more subtle 
evils which arise from gambling under the name 
of business. 

Unfair Speculation 

When fortunes are so readily made from fluctua- 
tions in the price of grain or of stocks, it naturally 
grows to be the custom that any individual trader 
will keep to himself any information which is 
likely to affect the prices of the commodities in 
which he deals, and his purchases or his sales will 
then be made with a certainty of profit which 
amounts to an unfair inflicting of a loss upon the 
person with whom he deals. No one questions 
the legality of many such actions, but ethically 
such a transaction is virtually gambling with 
loaded dice. A friend of mine as director of a 
large manufacturing corporation learned that 
his company was about to build a new plant in a 
rural suburb. The plan was still a secret. Across 
the road from the site determined upon were 
vacant lots which could be bought at the day for 
a song, but which would rise sharply in value 
[26] 



THE WINNING 

as soon as the plans of the company became 
known. Should he buy those lots and take the 
profit? He had plenty of money available. He 
decided that he ought not to take advantage of 
his private information, and he left the profit for 
the original holders. Would you or I have de- 
cided as he did ? 

A step further is taken when the director of a 
corporation from his position as director gains 
information which is certain to affect the value 
of the stocks or bonds of the corporation itself, 
and acting on that information goes into the 
market and buys or sells the stocks of his own 
company, winning profits — in this case clearly 
" tainted " profits — for himself at the expense 
of the stock-holders for whom he is a trustee. And 
yet transactions such as these are by no means 
uncommon, and doubtless many of the large 
fortunes of London and New York have been made 
in good part in exactly this way. It cannot be said 
in any of these cases that the profit made comes 
in any sense as a payment for services rendered to 
an individual or to society. The property has been 
taken from one and transferred to another with 
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GREAT FORTUNES 

no service rendered in return. It is always difficult, 
of course, to draw the line clearly between legiti- 
mate trading and gambling on the stock exchange, 
and one cannot be too cautious about making 
charges in specific cases. But the principle is 
clear. When the gain of one person is made at the 
expense of another without any service to society, 
and especially when that gain is brought about 
by special knowledge improperly withheld so 
that the chances in the gambling game are not 
even, the act is dishonorable, and unjust, and 
detrimental to the public. 

Even worse perhaps is the case where a large 
holder of stock, merely by virtue of his large hold- 
ings, is able at will to sell blocks of stock so large 
as to depress the price, or again to buy it up so as to 
raise the price, adjusting the times of his actions 
to the settling days in such a way that his hapless 
victims, blundering in their ignorance of his plans, 
can have no knowledge of the ways in which they 
have lost, but can be conscious only of the fact 
that "luck" has gone against them. This is 
clearly plunder. 

( c ) Monopoly . Of like nature in part, and 
[28] 



THE WINNING 

yet different in kind, and in many instances 
different in results, are the gains of monopoly. 
I do not mean to assert that monopoly in itself 
is always bad. It may well be that a monopoly 
may serve the public interest or be created for 
the public welfare, although usually such is not 
the case; but a monopoly gain, so far as the 
gain comes from the principle of monopoly itself 
beyond the reward for service rendered, is merely 
the transfer of property from one person to 
another without a corresponding service rendered 
in return. 

The Patent Monopoly 

No one questions that the inventor of a valuable 
machine has rendered a distinct service to society 
for which he should be paid, and liberally paid. 
It has been thought the best policy by our Govern- 
ment to pay the inventor by granting him a mono- 
poly for a term of years, and doubtless it is well 
to stimulate invention in this way, unless a better 
way can be found. In many cases, however, the 
fact of monopoly enables the owner of the patent 
to win his high monopoly profits by limited sales 
[29] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

and high prices. A much greater service would be 
rendered to society by a price nearer the com- 
petitive range which would extend the sales much 
more widely and be of much greater benefit to 
society and which might return to the owner of the 
patent nearly as great rewards. It is a question 
whether it would not be wiser for the state to reward 
the inventor by a fixed and liberal royalty, and 
then, by throwing the patented article open to the 
freest competition among manufacturers, to render 
the greatest service to society by supplying the 
available product at the lowest practicable price. 

Natural Monopolies 

The same principle holds with reference to the 
so-called natural monopolies, the street railways, 
the electric lighting plants, the telegraph, the 
railroads. Competition, as is well known, cannot 
control such corporations, and so far as the gains 
are technically the high gains of monopoly, in 
distinction from the fair returns on the invest- 
ment, the great fortunes amassed from these 
sources are practically transfers from the pockets 
of the general public to the pockets of the stock- 
[30] 



THE WINNING 

holders without an adequate service rendered in 
exchange. Some service is rendered to be sure, 
even a great service ; but the gain is often excessive. 
The right to the streets is vested in the public. 
The control of transportation is a right of the pub- 
lic, and high monopoly gains from the use of the 
streets, so far as they are beyond a reasonable re- 
turn for the capital and energy invested and the risk 
incurred, are made at the expense of the public. 
In such instances, the proper policy is doubtless 
for the state to protect both the investor and the 
public by whatever arrangement is best suited 
to the local conditions, so that the investment of 
capital and the expenditure of energy shall reap 
their due and fair reward for the service which is 
rendered to the public, while the state shall 
prevent the enormous gains of monopoly at the 
expense of the public which in many cases have 
heretofore been secured. In many small places 
the franchise is probably not worth more than a 
fair interest on the investment ; but in many 
large cities it is worth millions. I am not over- 
looking the difficulties of fixing a reasonable gain 
(the practical problem is extremely complex); 
[31] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

but there is no question as to the nature of the 
principle involved. Private capital and effort 
should reap a fair reward; the public should be 
protected against undue gains. 

Undue Exercise of Power in Bargaining 

We perhaps too seldom think of the real 
nature of the gain which comes through undue 
exercise of power by one party to a bargain over 
the other. I have spoken of monopoly price, but 
the principle of monopoly is found no less in many 
transactions where it does not openly appear. It 
may well be that, owing to some local circumstance, 
a borrower of money is practically limited in his 
borrowing to one money-lender. If his need is 
great, the lender may exact, not the reasonable re- 
turn for the use of capital that is just and in the 
interests of society, but an unreasonable, extortion- 
ate usury which does not benefit society, but 
which merely transfers unjustly ownership of 
property. 

Special Advantages 

Different also in nature from monopoly gains 
but equally without the return of service for profits 
[33] 



THE WINNING 

made, are the fortunes which are based upon 
special privileges or favoritism of some sort. In 
the earlier days these privileges usually took the 
form of legal monopoly and were granted by the 
state; now, in many cases, under diflFerent condi- 
tions and forms, we still get a virtual, though not 
a legal, monopoly. 

If a city council grants to a corporation at too 
low a rate a franchise for electric lighting or a 
street railway system, this is of course practically 
a monopoly granted by the government; but an 
advantage scarcely less great, though different 
in kind, is sometimes given to shippers by 
railroads in the form of special rates or of re- 
bates for freights paid. This form of privilege 
granted by railroads to certain shippers is so well 
known that it needs no extended comment. It is, 
of course, clear, however, that the profit made by 
a shipper through rebates is probably a profit made 
without any adequate return rendered to society, 
or, for that matter, in many cases, without any 
special service to the railroad more than is usually 
rendered by the shipper. It would, of course, be too 
much to assert that the favored shipper does not 
[33] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

in certain cases render a special service to the 
railroad. If the shipper can himself furnish freight 
by the train-load instead of by two or three cars 
at a time, the railroad is certainly benefited there- 
by. If, as was the case in the earlier days with the 
Standard Oil Company, a large shipper can be- 
come an "evener" of traffic as between different 
railroads that have entered into an agreement to 
divide the freight between certain competitive 
points, the shipper may doubtless render a special 
service to the railroad. It is the usual opinion, 
however, and an opinion upheld by the courts, 
that any such services which bring about discrim- 
ination between different shippers is contrary to 
public policy, and therefore ought not to be grant- 
ed. So far, then, as freight rebates and special dis- 
criminations in railroad rates are concerned, we 
may say that in many cases fortunes made through 
these rebates are made without any adequate 
service rendered to the railroad in return; and in 
the other cases we may say that, inasmuch as such 
a service to the railroad has been held to be con- 
trary to public policy, the shipper has received his 
favors and has become wealthy without the re- 
[34] 



THE WINNING 

turn of any adequate service to the public. We 
need perhaps not dwell upon the fortunes that 
have been gained through these favors granted by 
the railroads. They go far beyond the fortune of 
the shipper and include in many cases fortunes of 
real estate speculators often connected with the 
railroads, through the building up of one locality 
at the expense of another. They include likewise 
the fortunes given to subsidiary companies by 
special contracts which often lessen the profits to 
the stock-holders of the railroad, and all of the so- 
called abuses which have arisen through secret 
discriminations of various kinds. 

In this same category should be placed, of 
course, practically all unfair methods of com- 
petition, such as the purchase of secret information 
regarding a competitor's business from agents of 
that competitor and all other methods of com- 
petition which are contrary to public policy. In 
all such cases, whatever may be the service 
that is rendered to some individual, so long as 
the acts are those contrary to public policy, no 
service is rendered to society for the wealth thus 
gained. 

[35] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

The Gain is to the Strong of Whatever Class 
There has been much discussion of late years 
regarding the principles involved in the great 
struggles between the employers of labor and their 
working-men. We must in no such case overlook 
the diflSculties which arise from the complexity of 
the problem. It is not possible for any person in 
the case of a great labor contest so to know and so to 
weigh all of the multiplicity of factors which enter 
into the question of wage making, that he can be 
sure that he is rendering an absolutely just de- 
cision. But this much is clear: that in every great 
contest of the nature mentioned, there is a product 
to be divided among the employers, the laborers, 
and the public. And as matters go, there is little 
doubt that whichever one of these great contestants 
has the advantage through a monopoly more or less 
complete, or through other irresistible power, that 
one will secure the advantage. If the supply of 
labor is large and the employers are few and or- 
ganized, so that they have a practical control, 
there can be little doubt that wages will be crowded 
unreasonably low and that the profits of the em 
ployers will in part be of that class mentioned: 
[36] 



THE WINNING 

not just and reasonable payment for services 
actually rendered in the production of goods, 
but rather transfers from the pockets of the 
laborers to the pockets of the employers made 
by virtue of their controlling position. 

If, on the other hand, the laborers by virtue of a 
thoroughly organized union are enabled so to con- 
trol the labor supply, particularly in times of 
strong demand, that they have the advantage, 
there can be little doubt that they too will so 
misuse their power that their gains will not be all, 
although they may be in good part, those which 
come from an adequate compensation for the 
service rendered; but they also will be in part like 
monopoly gains. Instances are not wanting of 
trade unionists who have had so nearly a control of 
the labor supply in their line of work that their high 
wages have forced the profits of all but the most skil- 
ful of their employers so low that the industry has 
been injured on the one hand, and on the other the 
prices of the product have been kept so high by 
these high wages, that the benefit to the public has 
been greatly lessened through limited consumption. 

And even at times the great blundering stupid 
[37] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

giant, the public, usually without deliberate inten- 
tion, but sometimes none the less successfully, 
so uses its power over industry, through legisla- 
tion or the pressure of public sentiment, that 
both employers and laborers are made to 
suffer unjustly, while the public reaps a benefit 
through too low prices. An unregulated competi- 
tion, brought about by stupid inaction on the part 
of the Government or at times even by an unwise 
stimulus to competitive bidders on government 
contracts, may lead to the oppressive employment 
of children's labor, and may force prices so low 
for the immediate benefit of the taxpayers that the 
profits of the employers will not reasonably com- 
pensate them for their services, while the laborers 
will be held down to unjustly low wages. I grant 
freely that in the case of government contracts 
for supplies, such instances are extremely rare. 
But on the other hand, the same principle applies, 
and the instances are by no means rare, when 
the Government demands the services of the 
ablest public men in important diplomatic or 
executive positions at so low a wage that only 
the rich can take the places. It is a well known 
[38] 



THE WINNING 

fact that few, if any, of our ambassadors receive 
a salary large enough to pay the expenses which 
they must incur if they are to do their work satis- 
factorily. Instances of men being required to 
spend twice or three times the salaries which they 
receive are not confined to the diplomatic service, 
but are found in many other departments of 
Government. The result is that it is becoming a 
desirable qualification for many ofiices that a 
man should possess independent means, so that 
he may, without serious sacrifice or temptation to 
dishonesty, live beyond his salary. Doubtless some 
of the corruption in our consular service has been 
due to the unjust exploitation of government oflScers 
by the Government, which has forced them either 
to live beyond their means or to perform their 
public duties in ways much less expensive than 
those employed by men holding similar posi- 
tions under foreign governments. This policy of 
saving money for the Government at the expense 
of its service is as unjust and unwise as similar 
actions on the part of employers in holding wages 
too low, or of labor unions in extorting unjust 
wages from their employers. 
[39] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

It is worth while thus to attempt to see through 
some of the varying phases which this principle of 
monopoly or that of unjust discrimination or that 
of overweening power may assume, in order that 
we may be able to judge somewhat more accurate- 
ly and justly the methods by which some great 
fortunes are built up. We must not misunderstand. 
Most monopolies render services to society. They 
are entitled to rewards, liberal rewards for their 
services; but the "monopoly principle" gives 
them at times much more; and, socially, they are 
not entitled to this surplus gain. While we do not 
in common conversation speak of the Government 
winning a great fortune by the brutal exercise of 
its monopoly power, it is still true that in a poor 
state the Government may and at times does extort 
by taxation or otherwise too much for the lavish 
living of its officials, who, by such methods, are 
reaping the benefits in the splendor of their pub- 
lic life which private fortune owners enjoy in 
their private capacity. 

It will serve as an example if we recall the lavish 
luxury of the South Carolina legislature in re- 
construction days, when former plantation hands 
[40] 



THE WINNING 

lolled at their ease on $200 sofas, used $20 cus- 
pidors and entertained themselves and their 
friends in restaurants and lodgings at the expense 
of the state. The case was exceptional and the 
experience a fleeting one, though all too long for 
the taxpayers; but those who are socialistically 
inclined may well note the private use that govern- 
ment officials may make of public funds. 

While we may not say that by the exercise of their 
monopoly power, the trade unionists amass great 
fortunes, it is important for us to keep in mind, 
that at times the labor unionist, although he may 
not gain a large fortune, is acting from the same 
motives and quite as unjustly, as the great for- 
tune-getter. He is thereby as worthy of condem- 
nation in adding unfairly, or, in special cases, 
cruelly, thirty cents a day to his wages, as is his 
employer who may amass millions. 

Let me emphasize again what I said before, 
that it is probably in and through the exercise of 
the principle of plunder or the undue exercise 
of advantage, of gambling or of its allied principle 
of monopoly, or of special privilege or favor of 
some kind that many, very many, if not most of 
[41] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

the greatest fortunes have been won. And yet 
let me say, with no less emphasis, that it is still 
within the power of a great business personality, 
and it has been the experience of many a person- 
ality of that type to win a great fortune, no part 
of which was extorted by monopoly or unfair 
discrimination of any kind, but all of which, even 
though it amounted to many millions, was secured 
as a just and reasonable payment for services 
actually rendered to society. 

Fortune Using is the Prime Consideration 

These considerations regarding fortune-winning 
should be carefully considered; we may then 
attack the further problem of fortune-using. 
For that is the prime consideration, and we 
must be just to all classes. We are in danger of 
recklessly ascribing evil purposes to the rich, vir- 
tue to the poor. While it is true beyond doubt 
that a man is no better because he is rich, we need 
often to keep also in mind the fact that a man is 
no better because he is poor. Manhood and woman- 
hood are independent of wealth or of poverty. 
They are matters of character and purpose. We 
[42] 



THE WINNING 

need particularly at this age and in this country, 
where we have made such enormous economic 
advance, to realize that it is not the wealth itseK 
that counts for either ill or good, but the use that is 
made of it. While we must not underestimate the 
great uplift to civilization that comes from raising 
the common standard of living for the poorer 
classes, and this is probably the best possible use 
of wealth, we must also not overlook the fact that, 
as we look back through the ages, the peoples 
that have stood in the forefront of the world's 
historic advance, the peoples that have done the 
most to uplift the higher civilization throughout 
the world, are those in which the getting of 
wealth, although encouraged, was subordinated to 
the use that was made of it. Pericles said in his fun- 
eral oration in the Ceramicus over the dead who 
had fallen at Marathon, — " We, the Athenians, 
aim at a life beautiful without extravagance; con- 
templative without unmanliness. Wealth with us 
is a thing not for ostentation, but for reasonable 
use, and it is not the acknowledgment of poverty 
that we think disgraceful, but the lack of endeavor 
to avoid it." Wealth was to be employed large- 
[43] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

ly for the public good, and the wealth which 
came to Athens in her most prosperous days was 
used in building her temples and embellishing 
them with works of art, in building her theaters 
and encouraging in them the production of 
dramas of the highest rank, and in seeing to it 
that every citizen had the leisure to get the benefit 
of such means of culture, so that Athens has stood 
from that day to this as a center toward which all 
lovers of art and literature and refinement have 
turned, and as a state whose influence in shaping 
the higher life seems not to lessen but to increase 
as the ages pass. 



[44] 



THE USING 

Benefits of Single Management in Production 

WE shall do well in turning from the mo- 
tives and the methods of the fortune- 
getters to consider the social results of great for- 
tunes, first to make inquiry regarding the effects of 
the unification of a large property especially re- 
garding its management by a single head. Are the 
results good or bad ? In the first place, general 
prosperity, often shown by rapid increase in wealth, 
is beneficial, but there are also benefits to 
society from having a great fortune under 
a single management. No one now ques- 
tions the advantages to production which flow 
from industry carried on on a large scale. Only 
great establishments can get the best equipment 
for cheap production ; only such can secure the 
ablest men throughout the entire industry in the 
places for which they are best adapted ; only such 
[45] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

can make the enormous savings in the cost of sell- 
ing goods which come from doing away with the 
competitive bidding of traveling men and with 
costly advertising. If an industry is practically 
consolidated, so that the only need for advertising 
is to let purchasers know where and how goods 
can be found and what the qualities of those goods 
are, the saving may be made of all the competi- 
tive advertising that simply turns the consumer 
from one establishment to another without giving 
him any added advantage. Think of the enormous 
expense of advertising such a product as Pears' 
soap, or the competing breakfast foods. Some of 
the great magazines charge from $250 to $400 a 
page for a single insertion. In many an instance, if 
this expense of competitive selling could be saved, 
the product might be sold for half the price. 

Benefits May Become Injuries 

But all these benefits of single management and 
even of monopoly, if you please, are turned into 
injuries to society, if the motive of the fortune 
user is selfish and wrong, and if the methods which 
he employs are unscrupulous and oppressive. 
[46] 



THE USING 

From selfish motives comes the temptation to 
dishonesty in the management of business, or to 
practices Hke adulteration, injurious to the public, 
which find their ready excuse in custom and in 
the evil methods of others. No thoughtful student 
of society questions that many of the chief manag- 
ers of the great insurance companies, whose acts, 
when viewed under the lime-light of the awakened 
conscience of the public, now seem criminal, acted 
with a clear conscience and even possibly with a 
sense of duty performed in the interests of the 
policy-holders. For instance, take the case of Mr. 
McCall, the late President of the New York Life, 
in connection with the contributions to campaign 
funds or to legislative expenses. He had grown 
accustomed to the thought that legislatures must 
be controlled or bribed, and he justified his 
deeds by what he felt to be his motives. So, 
too, when some of the insurance managers acted 
directly for their own personal benefit, it is 
probable that many of them felt, surrounded 
as they were by other men whose profits were 
enormous, that their extravagant expenses were 
proper and that their services might well be con- 
[47] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

sidered worth a hundred thousand dollars a year; 
but it has not taken the public long to find out 
that other men would be willing and glad to render 
equal or better services for a quarter that sum. 
Even when they used their official positions 
and official information to make private profits for 
themselves through their dealings with the com- 
pany's money, they doubtless, in many cases, felt 
that they were simply conforming to ordinary 
usage, and hence excused themselves for acts 
which they evidently knew and felt to be of 
doubtful morality, since they were so careful, 
generally speaking, to conceal them. The social 
benefit or injury of these great fortunes in 
single hands depends then . . . , largely, 
upon the motive which impels those who are man- 
aging or using them, and the methods employed. 
Unless they are used with the most thoughtful care 
in the interest of the public, they arouse class 
hatred on the one hand and give rise to oppression 
on the other; but rightly used they may bring 
pleasure and culture and refinement to their 
owners, and education and training to the 
public. 

[48] 



THE USING 

Monopoly is Sometimes, Though Rarely, Generous 

Even monopoly gains in the hands of employers 
have been used at times in part to increase the 
wages of laborers, the employer feeling that, as his 
gains from monopoly were large, it was his duty to 
share those gains in some degree with his working- 
men. Such instances are perhaps rare, but the evi- 
dence is clear that even the whisky trust took this 
view when its organization was first completed, al- 
though there is no reason to believe that this view 
has been retained throughout its most interesting 
and tortuous career. Much more often has it hap^ 
pened that the power of a great fortune, in a single 
hand, has been used to hold the working-man 
down to lower wages rather than to lift him up by 
sharing with him the gains, even though such 
gains were made at the expense of the public. 

Rich Men Serve the State Well at Times 

In the political field, likewise, the great fortunes 
have, under our present circumstances, often 
served a useful purpose. The fact has already been 
noted that our ambassadors to foreign courts 
cannot fitly fill their honorable and important 
[49] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

positions unless they possess large private means, 
from the income of which they can supplement 
their meager salaries. And yet some of our rich 
ambassadors have, by virtue of this wealth, been 
enabled to render to our country most distinguished 
service to which we should accord full recognition. 
I fear that it is getting to be more and more the 
case not merely in our foreign service, but also 
in our administrative work at home, that it is a 
decided advantage for a person in the public 
service to possess a large private fortune. The 
expenses of living in Washington or in many of 
our state capitals are such that if a person wishes 
to play well his part in the social world into which 
his public position has pushed him, he would 
naturally wish to expend much more than his 
salary. Even if we put the case not quite so 
strongly, the advantage to the state, to the public, 
of some private fortunes is no less clear. There 
may be other advantages to the public of having 
men in politics who are independent of salary. They 
cannot so readily be coerced by a party boss. Our 
party organizations are so powerful that no one 
can expect to secure an elective position, such as 
[50] 



THE USING 



that of Congressman or even of state Assemblyman, 
unless he has either the support of the dominating 
party in his district or is able himself to take the 
time and to expend the energy and money neces- 
sary for a thorough canvass of his district. If a 
man ambitious to render public service in an oflS- 
cial position must have the income from his office 
in order to live, he is practically at the mercy of 
the party leader; whereas if he is a man of inde- 
pendent means, he can much more easily name 
conditions to the party manager, or himself 
dictate a policy. Under our present conditions, 
therefore, it is looked upon by many — and I 
think none of us will deny that their view is some- 
times just — as a good fortune to the state that 
many of our younger cultured men of wealth, 
heirs of great fortunes, are showing themselves 
ready to devote their time and their money to 
the public service. Some of our ablest diplomats 
and administrators are of this class, and we should 
recognize their worth. It is a misfortune, we may 
say, that any man whose mental equipment and 
training fits him best for a certain public position, 
should not be able financially to take it. But it 
[51] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

would be most unjust to assume that merely be- 
cause a man has wealth, he has not public spirit 
and patriotism and ability. When we find men 
with these qualifications, we may well rejoice 
that by virtue of their wealth they are able to act 
more independently and more in the public in- 
terest than would one who must depend upon the 
favor of the party politician. 

dvantages of Wealth Properly Used 

Again we may well glance back to the wise 
thinkers of ancient Greece, who seemed to feel that 
the highest good of the state could not be secured 
unless there were a leisure class of philosophers 
who, without the care and time-consuming toil 
of winning a livelihood, could devote their lives 
to study and thought and public service. 
The only fault that we can find with such a 
principle is that those whose fortunes come to 
them without effort, and not as a reward, are too 
likely not to possess the spirit of self-sacrifice 
which is needed to make the best use of their 
gifts. They are likely to waste their time and to 
squander wealth foolishly and to debauch others. 
[52] 



THE USING 

Such evils are doubtless, relatively speaking, 
seldom to be found in the generation of the self- 
made men. Most of them have known what 
struggle is. They have been trained in the hard 
school of business and know the absolute need of 
business integrity and personal character; but 
their sons and grandsons, if their wealth remains, 
may well bring about the evil effects of the exercise 
of power without the beneficent effects that come 
from the struggle to gain that power. The present 
generation of the wealthy are, frequently, men of 
moral, often of old-fashioned religious lives, 
careful in personal habits, though perhaps often 
indisposed to question the moral character of 
business practices in which they have been trained. 
Some of them, — and it is probably true that their 
number is increasing — are inclined to take their 
mere possession of wealth seriously. Just as 
they have, for many years, been asking what were 
their responsibilities, as gainers of wealth, to their 
stock-holders and their employees, so now they 
ask what responsibilities rest upon them as the 
possessors of wealth. 

But they nevertheless have natural affections. 
[53] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

While they may give freely of their income for char- 
ity and for public purposes, they are not likely to 
forget their sons and their daughters ; nor, again, 
are they likely to be ready to lay down their power. 
They will rather wish to transmit this power to 
those who follow them, and who not having been 
trained in the same severe and rigid school of 
experience are likely to hold more lightly their 
responsibilities. 

Advantages and Dangers of Endowments 
by the Rich 

It is impossible to avoid this difficulty, but 
something more might perhaps be done to secure 
for the public good the services of men of little 
wealth. Some provision might be made by the 
state through adequate salaries and relative 
permanency of tenure, as is indeed now some- 
times done indirectly. Provision might also be made 
by private endowment, as in the case of university 
chairs, or, as was done in the days of Cicero, by 
wealthy patrons. But we need to be careful to avoid 
the dangers of patronage. We surely do not want in 
our day to see a rich man surrounded by such a 
[54] 



THE USING 



throng of sycophants and parasites waiting to secure 
something of their master's bounty as was to be seen 
in ancient Rome. We do not want our Hterary men 
or our poHtical thinkers to be patronized by wealthy 
men of culture who would keep them practically as 
retainers and dependents, as was customary in the 
days of Lorenzo di Medici or Queen Elizabeth. For- 
tunately at times now there are wealthy men who 
are willing to endow professors' chairs or univer- 
sities or institutes for scientific research, with no 
conditions excepting that the trustees of the gift 
shall try to find the best men to carry on the work. 
Generally such endowments are for institutions 
only; but sometimes in the days of the Roman 
Republic they were personal. A man who devoted 
his life to the public service in a political way 
might be endowed, so that he could give himself 
freely to his life work without care for personal 
needs. It is said that in recognition of his great 
public services and his self-sacrificing boldness 
in defending unpopular causes, Cicero re- 
ceived at one time and another by will and 
personal gift, not less than a million dollars 
Possibly the time may yet come here when a 
[55] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

wealthy public-spirited citizen, instead of endowing 
an institution or founding a professor's chair, 
may find some man of promise and devotion to the 
public service whose character and aims are such 
that he would not abuse his trust, and will endow 
him with a life income sufficient to enable him to 
do his best public service without wasting his 
energies on bread-winning. A life annuity might 
thus be well suited to the public interest. The 
only instance of the kind that I have known in 
modem times is the provision made recently by such 
an endowment to put Booker T.Washington during 
his lifetime beyond care for the future so far as 
the personal wants of himself and his family 
were concerned. The purpose and the plan are 
right. And in the case of men like Booker Wash- 
ington, whose characters have been tested, there 
could be no better endowment. But the men should 
be selected with very great care. 

Politically, also, we must recognize the great 
services of wealth in establishing and maintaining 
the power of a great country abroad. The influence 
of the United States in the world's councils at the 
present day depends to no small extent upon the 
[56] 



THE USING 

wealth of the country and upon evidences of that 
wealth as seen in rich Americans who are making- 
worthy use of their possessions. 

While we may thus indicate useful ways in 
which our great fortunes are used politically, we 
must not fail to mention (our magazines will not 
let us forget ) the baleful uses of these great for- 
tunes in bribery and corruption which has made 
many of our state and city governments a hissing 
and a byword. 

Tlie Aristocracy of Wealth 

What is the more general social effect of 
these great fortunes ? We hear in a great many 
cases of our aristocracy of wealth. And there can 
be no doubt that in one sense, though not the high- 
est, our very wealthy people do form an aristoc- 
racy whose doings are chronicled in the daily 
press as if the doings were of public importance. 
They are of interest to many readers or they would 
not be so chronicled. I fear that the chief result 
from the creation of such an aristocracy is found 
in class jealousies and in the misjudgment on the 
part of the very rich themselves of the real nature 
[57] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

and the real excellencies of those who belong 
to other classes. But we should recognize also 
that a proper use of wealth may easily secure an 
aristocracy of culture and refinement which can 
be found only among people who possess at least 
a modest competence and who do not have to 
spend their time in earning their bread. 

The Idle Rich 

The idle rich, fortunately in America only a 
small class, mostly those who have inherited their 
wealth ( not the wealth-getters, but those who, 
from the chronicles of their doings, are largely 
wasting their time in a frantic desire to be amused), 
are mere parasites on the body politic. Their ex- 
istence is useless rather than seriously harmful to 
society and their chief social and political func- 
tion seems to be to set envy and anti-social 
extremists at work. It is unfortunate that all can- 
not recognize the really slight consequence of 
such idle rich persons in the great mass of soci- 
ety, but it is doubtless a fact that, where great for- 
tunes are used chiefly for the gratification of vanity 
and the desire for pleasure, the rich become a dan- 
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gerous element in the community. They are one of 
the chief causes, if not the chief cause, why the 
less thoughtful and more passionate classes at the 
other extreme, with a feeling that matters could 
be no worse, and with the hope that in any new 
form of organization, wealth would be more 
evenly and justly distributed, are ready to take 
rash steps toward the violent overthrow of 
present society. 

There must always be in society classes; the 
variety in human nature is too great for all to 
belong to one class. There will be many classes 
and the distinctions between them will be 
great; but great fortunes draw the distinctions 
between the classes on a false and unsocial 
basis. The fact that the rich are very rich 
tends to make many people believe that the poor 
are continually growing poorer, even though the 
standard of life is steadily rising. This class dis- 
tinction, based on wealth, and dangerous on ac- 
count of the actions of the idle rich, is one great 
evil to be found from the accumulation, and par- 
ticularly from the inheritance, of great for- 
tunes. 

[59] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

The Social Classes 
But is it true, as has been so often asserted, that, 
under modern economic conditions, the rich are 
continually growing richer, while the poor are grow- 
ing poorer ? Is it true that society is being separated 
into these two great economic classes one of which 
dominates the other and between which there 
is a continually widening cleft? In one sense the 
statement is probably true; in the other and much 
more significant sense the statement is undoubtedly 
false. If a hundred years ago, in the United States, 
the wealthiest man was worth, perchance, a 
million, while the poor man had but enough to 
keep him from starvation, the difference in their 
wealth, as measured by cash, was substantially a 
million dollars. If at the present time our wealthiest 
man is worth, let us say, five hundred millions of 
dollars, while the poor man still has his living in ac- 
cordance with our present standards of comfort, 
the difference measured by dollars, instead of one 
million is substantially five hundred millions and 
the cleft seems wider. But if, on the other hand, 
we measure the distance between the two by 
standards of comfort, opportunities for culture, 
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chances for living the higher Hfe, the cleft instead 
of widening has been rapidly narrowing during 
the last hundred years. The fairly diligent, thrifty 
laborer of good habits to-day has a home better 
warmed, better lighted, more comfortably furnish- 
ed than were the palaces of Queen Elizabeth or of 
Louis XIV, although, of course, there is less 
display of gold embroidery and of silverware 
and jewels. At the present time, a skilled me- 
chanic, if thrifty and diligent, may live in com- 
fort at home, surrounded by all that is necessary 
for health, with enough of the best literature, if he 
has taste to care for that, to make him learned in 
the thoughts of the great philosophers, poets, and 
historians, and with enough left to put into in- 
surance so that he need not fear the pinch of 
absolute poverty when his working days are over. 
Of course I am speaking of the better class of 
diligent, skilled workmen, and I compare them 
with the wealthiest men of to-day as compared 
with the wealthiest men of a hundred years ago. 
The wealthy man of to-day may have his steam 
ocean-going yacht and his private car, may spend 
his many thousands upon a single banquet, may 
[61] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

take up forestry as a pastime on his own private 
estate, — and in these ways the differences between 
his expenditures and those of the poor man are 
greater than were those a hundred years ago. 
But the differences in the essentials for living 
a life of health, strength and genuine culture are 
far less now than they were then. This fact, too, of 
the steady raising of the standards of living of the 
poorer people is due in no small degree to the 
great inventions of modern days which have led to 
the consolidation of wealth, and to the added 
power of production which has come to a con- 
siderable extent through this consolidation and 
the consequent concentration of industrial energy. 

Do Monopolies Destroy Opportunities for Able Men? 

And is it true that the great combinations of 
capital, from which often spring the great fortunes, 
have shut out from the man of executive ability 
but of small capital the power to start an indepen- 
dent business and to live out his industrial life 
free from the dictum of a master? Doubtless in 
certain great lines of industry, such as sugar refin- 
ing or steel manufacture, the small man with a 
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few hundred or a few thousands of dollars cannot 
start in competition with his great rivals; but 
probably in the great majority of industries, 
if we go by number, not by prominence, and 
especially in those which require individual taste 
in the manufacturer, or the satisfaction of 
individual taste in the consumer, the oppor- 
tunities are still open. An individual with no capi- 
tal, if he has the requisite taste and skill, may still 
become famous as an architect, a house decorator, 
a milliner, a dressmaker, a builder of artistic 
furniture, a caterer, as well as a practitioner of 
law or medicine. An acquaintance with a clientage 
of wealthy men may give one a start, but after all 
it is the ability and the recognition of the public 
needs that makes the ultimate success. Consolida- 
tion of capital, then, may in certain narrow lines 
restrict the opportunities for independent work, 
but the wider reaches of the field of opportunity 
are still open. 

Probably never before to-day has the opportunity 

been so good for young men of really great capacity 

to attain high position in industrial life as directors 

of great enterprises. In earlier times, a man could 

[63] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

found a business and hand it down from generation 
to generation, fairly confident that his sons and 
grandsons even though possessed of but moderate 
talents, could make their living respectably. And 
he might also feel confident that even though their 
talents were great, the business was still likely 
to be moderate. At the present time, the man of 
really great ability may start at the bottom, but 
so keen is the competition and so boundless are 
the opportunities, so eager are possessors of great 
capital to find the men who can wield its power 
most successfully, that the boy who fulfills his 
task better than the others of his class is sure to be 
promoted. So certain is this promotion from grade 
to grade, from position to position, on account of 
the stress of competition, that, provided one 
shows himself worthy, the man of greatest 
ability is not likely long to lack opportunity for 
making the best use of all his power. Even at the 
present time, name, influence, family connections 
will give a young man a start. That is human 
nature. But, if he has not in him the capacity 
or the willingness for greater work, his position 
in the industrial world will always remain sub- 
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ordinate whatever it may be in circles devoted to 
amusement. On the other hand, although the man 
of really first grade qualities may need to start 
lower and wait somewhat longer for his first re- 
cognition, he is bound to be pushed forward under 
the pressure of business necessity into any place 
for which he is fitted. Probably never before in any 
country or at any time in the world's history have 
the opportunities been so many or the success so 
assured or the prizes so great for the man of really 
commanding capacity as in the United States at 
the present day. 

The Effects of Working Under Orders 

Much is said of the necessity at the present 
time of a man's working under orders, whereas 
formerly he could manage a business independent- 
ly; and much is said of the dwarfing effects of 
thus working under control; but this pessimistic 
view of the circumstances is a short-sighted one, 
and does not recognize all the conditions in an 
impartial way. 

We ought not to overlook the undoubted fact 
that at all periods of the world's history, in early 
[65 1 



GREAT FORTUNES 

days and in other countries, even more than at 
present in our own country, the great mass of the 
workers have served under the direction of others. 
Probably at the present time nine out of ten of 
those who start into an independent business find 
that they are incapable of making headway against 
their competitors. They either fail or gradually with- 
draw from their business with loss, or they toil 
along through years with no reward beyond that 
of the barest living. This has always been true. 
The men most difficult to find are those of real 
executive ability, men who are capable of directing 
their own work and that of others. For such men 
the consolidations, the great fortunes, offer oppor- 
tunities, different to be sure from those of earlier 
days, but no less important, and those which do 
not prevent the full development of the powers 
of initiative. A superintendent of a department 
in Wanamaker's store, the superintendent of one 
of the plants of the United States Steel Cor- 
poration, the general traffic manager of a great rail- 
road, the head of a great bank, the president 
of a great university, are all working under 
the direction of others, are all in subordinate 
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positions ; and yet all of them are given full power 
of initiative. They have every opportunity of 
showing their originality; they have every oppor- 
tunity of directing their own work so long as their 
direction is intelligent and their work successful. 
Even men in much more subordinate positions, 
while they must work in harmony with others, 
while they cannot undertake new plans without 
consultation or permission, are nevertheless so 
situated that every valuable idea will be eagerly 
taken and responsibility given in proportion to 
the capability of bearing it. Is there humiliation 
for the president of a railroad or of a bank in being 
under a board of directors ? He is expected to 
lead rather than to follow them, and while he is 
held responsible, while he must show results, 
no hampering restrictions are placed upon him. 
It is an art, — one well worthy of being developed, 
— to learn how to guide one's course so wisely 
as to meet the approval of one's superiors. The 
man who stands entirely independent must watch 
as carefully the acts of his competitors, and if he 
fails, instead of receiving suggestions and warnings 
from a board of directors, he receives rather a 
[67] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

summons to the bankrupt court at the suggestion 
of his creditors. There is a mistaken idea with 
reference to the opportunities for initiative and for 
self-direction given to people who are working in 
the service of others. Responsibility to others by no 
means implies subservience or weakness of 
character. 

The Independence of Character of the Worker 

The situation in the United States at the present 
time seems to prove well enough this contention. 
In no other country is there such consolidation of 
wealth; in no other country are corporations so 
powerful; and yet probably in no other country is 
there so much independence of character as in the 
United States at the present day. In no other coun- 
try and at no other time in our own country have 
the protests against what might be considered re- 
striction of speech or restriction of action been so 
vigorous as at the present time. We hear charges of 
attempts at the restriction of freedom of speech in 
our great universities. In my own judgment, the 
charges are almost absolutely without foundation, 
but the fact that the protests are made and that the 
[68] 



I 



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feeling of the danger of such restriction is so wide- 
spread is a most encouraging sign, and is in itself 
a proof of the independence of our spirit. Where 
else and at what other time in our own history 
have working-men been on the whole so free to 
combine, so ready to protest against needless re- 
strictions on the part of their employers, 
so able to fight their own battles ? Our 
trade unions, organized with their hundreds of 
thousands, even millions of members, are well 
capable of holding their own against our capitalists 
organized with their billions of money. The 
consolidation of capital has so far, at any rate, not 
weakened the spirit of freedom on the part of our 
wage-earners. Moreover, there is every reason to 
believe that the consolidations of capital, dealing 
with the consolidations of the laborers through 
systems of conciliation and trade agreements, will 
very soon lessen more and more the spirit of war- 
fare which has heretofore been so rife between 
these classes. This system will tend more than 
has ever before been the case to give freedom 
to the individual so far as he himself, bound by his 
sense of duty and responsibility, places a rein upon 
[69] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

himself and a check upon his own lawlessness. 
Self-restraint, after all, if evil methods are checked, 
gives the only freedom industrially, politically 
or spiritually. The consolidation of wealth, bring- 
ing about, as it certainly has done, vastly in- 
creased opportunities for self-development, may, 
perhaps, work rather toward this self-restraint 
of the individual than toward the mastery, in any 
evil sense, of the individual by others. 

The Responsibility of the Rich 

Again, we must not overlook the fact that 
with great fortunes comes often a feeling of re- 
sponsibility for the wise use of those fortunes, and 
this responsibility is made evident in their use for 
the public good. The endowment of colleges, of 
art museums, of public libraries, is not to be com- 
mended if in any sense such endowments are 
made with the idea of hoodwinking the public 
regarding evil purposes, nor if the gift is in 
any sense to excuse the methods employed in 
obtaining ill-gotten gains; but there is no reason 
why such endowments should not be absolutely 
free, as most of them, so far as I know, all of them, 
[70] 



I 



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are. With such use of the great fortunes, there 
may be given to the public benefits such as 
could not come from smaller gifts and could other- 
wise be secured, if secured at all, only through 
the action of the state. If we may judge by the 
history of the past, as well as from the experience 
of the present in our own country, many of the 
means of culture now freely open to all classes in 
the community would be wanting, if we were to 
trust solely to the intelligence and the foresight of 
the public as manifested by the actions of legisla- 
tors. Often the wisest use to make of wealth 
is to put it into productive business where it ren- 
ders service to society by added wages, added com- 
forts for all classes, especially the poor, through 
increase of production for consumption and 
wider distribution of these products among all 
classes. But more direct gifts to the public are 
not to be overlooked nor condemned. 

The Great Fortune a Public Trust or a Menace 

There can be no doubt that a great fortune, 
however accumulated, should be considered chiefly 
as a trust for the public. Each of us really owes his 

[71] 



GREAT FORT UN ES 

all to the state that has made civilization possible. 
Without it there would be no great fortunes, no 
safe living. There is no reason why the public 
should not accept the gift of a great fortune given 
from good motives. On the other hand, the ques- 
tion naturally crowds forward as to whether the 
public can properly seize the great fortune if it 
is not freely offered. There can be no doubt that 
a great fortune used selfishly tends to make a 
greater fortune, and that tends to make a monop- 
oly. It is becoming essential, it even has become 
essential, that in some way the public should 
control or put limits to the methods of getting and 
to the use made of the great fortunes. 

The Public Control of Fortunes 

Shall we limit their amount by tax or 
otherwise ? 

The question is often asked whether, since 
great fortunes may be used to the public detri- 
ment, the state should prevent their growth or 
whether it should attempt to control them. It is 
feared that, unless the state takes some active 
measures, the holders of the great fortunes will 
[72] 



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control the state and the pubHc. If what has been 
said heretofore is true, determined efforts should 
be made to prevent the accumulation of great 
fortunes by means detrimental to the public in- 
terest, — not because they are great, but because 
injurious methods are employed. On the other 
hand, they may be tolerated, they even may be 
encouraged, when they are made by legitimate and 
proper means, so that they are in the nature of 
reasonable payments for services actually rendered 
to the public. There is no harm in great fortunes 
themselves either in the process of accumulation 
or in the unified management, so long as methods 
employed are proper and wise use is made of them. 
Rather, as we have seen, they may be of great 
benefit to the public. There seems to be no reason 
then, in the nature of the case, for any action which 
shall amount to the confiscation of all profits when 
the fortune has reached a certain limit ; the restric- 
tion should rather be on the method of accumu- 
lation. I do not mean to say that such a measure 
as, for example, a progressive tax, even, under some 
circumstances, a progressive income tax, may not 
in itself be wise. I think that in many cases it is; 
[73] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

but the principle of increasing the tax in that 
case depends upon the increased abihty to pay, 
and that principle, not the desire to check the 
growth of the fortune, would fix the limit of the 
tax. 

Great Fortunes Should Be Secured to Public Uses 

Taxing for the public treasury. 

It is also desirable, of course, that in the 
long run the great fortunes be by conservative 
normal ways secured to public uses. Various 
suggestions in this direction have been made. 
We have already in this country attempted to 
prevent the holding of great estates by the aboli- 
tion of mortmain and prohibition of the right of 
entail, so that while a wealthy man may give 
practically all of his estate to his heir, he can- 
not determine that for generations this estate 
must remain in the family. There seems to be of 
late years, to be sure, a tendency in this country 
for large fortunes to remain in the family for 
several generations; but that tendency is not 
pronounced, and the distribution of a fortune 
among several people very generally occurs on 
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the death of the fortune builder. Would it be wise, 
as has been proposed, to limit the amount devised 
to a single person or a single family ? Possibly at 
some time, but I think not. The remedy would 
probably be worse than the evil. The abuses of 
inheritance are not great now; the chief dangers 
to society of great fortunes so far seem to be from 
corporations not from individual fortunes after 
they are beyond the control of the one man who 
is dominating a corporation. The holding of great 
fortunes in the form of stocks and bonds makes 
their distribution easy. We wish to hamper indi- 
vidual initiative and action as little as possible 
and still protect the public. Something may be 
done to bring about the needed protection with- 
out a rigid limitation of the amount devised. 

Our inheritance laws have, on the whole, now, 
a powerful tendency toward a wider distribution 
of fortunes, and this may be encouraged. Again, 
a progressive inheritance tax which tends to put 
into the public treasury a small percentage of 
every large fortune on the death of its owner 
looks in the same direction. I cannot take the space 
to discuss here in detail the principle of the in- 



GREAT FORTUNES 

heritance tax, but it is the general opinion of the 
best thinkers that such a tax at reasonably high 
rates, and at rates that shall increase with the size 
of the fortune, is one of the best taxes in the public 
interest that has yet been devised. Even though 
the rate is high, there is no noticeably injurious 
tendency to prevent thrift and activity in busi- 
ness enterprise. This tax might, perhaps, be in- 
creased on the largest fortunes. The heirs would 
not suffer appreciably. 

We Can Check Wrong Methods of 

Accumulation 

Of course the crude suggestion sometimes made 

that all great fortunes should be distributed among 

the public may be passed over with practically 

no comment. If other conditions remain as at 

present, such a distribution would be of no service 

in the long run. The fortunes, especially those that 

are accumulated by means detrimental to the 

public interest, would soon drift back largely into 

the hands of the original owners. On the other 

hand, if means could be found by which the 

process of accumulation by illegitimate or harmful 

methods could be prevented, there would, beyond 

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question, result a much more even distribution of 
wealth among the members of the community. 
Such distribution would probably bring with it 
a better standard of life among the poorer 
classes, and this would be extremely beneficial 
to the country as a whole. And such measures 
will gradually be worked out. So far as we can 
see at the present time, such measures are 
mainly those which encourage honorable thrift 
in the community, and which tend to prevent 
dishonest and dishonorable practices of all kinds, 
whether in the nature of special favors as rail- 
road rebates or avoidance of heavy tax burdens 
or stock gambling, improper buying and selling 
of stocks, or using unfairly against a competitor 
information of a confidential nature by what- 
ever means secured, i.e., laws securing a fair deal. 

Socialism Could Not Make the Able Men Unselfish 

Of course the solution of the difficulty proposed 
by some of the radicals is socialism which will 
take all the important tools and means of produc- 
tion from the hands of individuals and place them 
in the control of the Government to be used 
[77] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

for the benefit of the people at large. Here, 
again, it is not the time to argue the question. But 
most of our socialists seem to ignore the fact that 
our governments are made up of individual men 
who have the same passions, the same desires, 
noble and base, as other men; and that in every 
society the great mass of the people are to a 
considerable extent controlled by the few domi- 
nating personalities. Under our present organi- 
zation of society in a democratic country like 
the United States, where the chief prizes seem to 
be in private industry, these dominating personali- 
ties are, with many individual exceptions, in 
business, and are accumulating great fortunes 
for their own special use. When we consider 
human nature, we can see that in the socialistic 
state where the means of production were in the 
hands of the Government, these same personalities 
would probably control as well as in the individ- 
ualistic state of the present day. If these men are 
working to-day from selfish motives, there seems 
little reason to believe that in a socialistic state 
they would work from higher motives ; and it would 
probably be as easy for them to secure positions 
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as state officials in the socialistic state as now to 
control industrial society. As state officials they 
could as easily (or more easily) manipulate the Gov- 
ernment so as to give to themselves, in the guise of 
office-holders, the use of the great fortunes, as to 
secure them now as private individuals. Note the 
acts of the South Carolina legislature in reconstruc- 
tion days; note the luxury of rulers in many states. 
I welcome the present tendency toward government 
ownership and management of certain public utili- 
ties, particularly in the great cities, because I think 
this will afford us an excellent opportunity of 
gaining practical experience in public manage- 
ment of capitalistic enterprises. We can from such 
experience better judge what the effect of such 
management is likely to be upon both the ac- 
cumulation of capital and the welfare of the 
public, without taking the risk — a grave risk — 
of the adoption of a general policy of public 
ownership. We can then see how far it is likely 
to prove wise to extend this system of public 
ownership. If the experiments prove success- 
ful in many cases, we may carry the provisions 
much farther than we at present contemplate; 
[79] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

but until we can gradually bring about in some 
way a modification of the form of ambition which 
leads on our strongest men, I see no great promise 
of good in any such solution of this social problem, 
and I see many dangers. 

How Can the Able Men Be Kept in the Service 
of the State? 

President Eliot and Professor Taussig of Har- 
vard in late addresses have made important sugges- 
tions in this connection. President Eliot is of the 
opinion that, granted a liberal livelihood, the best 
men will do their work best, chiefly from love of 
the work and of the power that comes with an 
important position; while Professor Taussig 
hopes that in time we may get many of our ablest 
and most conscientious business men to go into 
political life by making official salaries somewhat 
larger so as to guarantee a suitable living ; by making 
the tenure of office more secure, so that a good man 
could afford to give up private business without 
too great risk; and by giving greater social dis- 
tinction to holders of public office, a distinction 
which would naturally come from higher salaries 
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and longer tenure and the drafting into that ser- 
vice of a higher type of men than now come — 
excepting the wealt' 

Public Opinion the Controlling Force 

Finally, it seems that after all, whatever may be 
the form of solution of our social difficulties in 
connection with great fortunes, everything ulti- 
mately rests upon the cultivation of a public senti- 
ment which shall unsparingly condemn dishonest 
and dishonorable and selfish motives and methods 
in the accumulation of wealth, and which shall 
encourage public spirit. Under the pressure 
of such a public opinion those who have 
accumulated great fortunes will keep the public 
interest in mind, and if their wealth be used wisely 
and unselfishly, there will be from them no danger 
to the public, but only benefit. 

In the ultimate analysis every great social re- 
form comes, not by legislative decree, but by 
converting the minds and hearts of the citizens. 
When this is done, right laws will be passed 
and enforced; otherwise not. The growth of 
the democratic idea has been a matter of 
[81] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

centuries; the abolition of slavery had first to be 
determined by pubhc sentiment, then the rulers 
acted. By the time the public is ready for intelli- 
gent and positive measures, severe compulsory 
acts will be httle needed and the necessary ones 
will be readily enforced. 

Public Spirit Will Dominate the Rich 

We sometimes hear it humorously remarked 
that no person in New England can die respectable 
unless he has left in his will some gift to Harvard 
University. Whenever there shall be a real loyalty 
to the public interest throughout the country, such 
as this imputed loyalty to Harvard University, we 
shall find that the use of great fortunes will 
turn more and more toward the promotion of 
public enterprises, even though now in the 
United States the distribution of large sums for 
the endowment of public institutions is most 
noteworthy. What is of far greater impor- 
tance, the methods of accumulation of the great 
fortunes will be so limited to those which are 
not detrimental, but only beneficial, that jeal- 
ousy of the rich will be allayed, since we shall 
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feel that they are receiving only their just dues. 
I do not look ahead to the attainment of this 
happy result within any short period of time, but 
I think that we may see clearly that a ten- 
dency in this direction is already noticeable. The 
exposures of corrupt methods of business man- 
agement in the great manufacturing corporations, 
in the railroads, in the insurance companies, have 
all tended to awaken the public conscience and to 
arouse a determination to prevent such practices 
in the future. These revelations have not merely 
proved a surprise to many, but they have been a 
quickener of the public conscience. Business men 
who had been carrying on similar practices without 
any thought of wrong-doing or of any injury to the 
public until the startling disclosures had set them 
to thinking, are now themselves revising their own 
methods of doing business. We can easily see that 
such a change in public sentiment is certain to 
result in a change in laws which will tend on the 
one hand to prevent by fear of punishment many 
evil practices, and on the other, to stimulate anew 
the moral sentiment which will lead to the volun- 
tary adoption of better practices. And although 
[83] 



GREAT FORTUNES 

we must expect that the process of regeneration 
will be discouragingly slow, we have still every 
reason to hope and to believe that this tendency' 
will continue until great fortunes, perhaps fewer 
in number than now and generally less in amount, 
will no longer be a public menace, but a public 
benefit. 

I referred earlier to the uplifting influence of 
great wealth used for public ends in ancient 
Athens, as it gave to the world an example of 
culture and refinement; but a still more potent 
influence than that of Athens came from Jerusa- 
lem. More important than the spread of refine- 
ment and art and literature is the culture of purity, 
unselfishness, righteousness. While under just 
conditions we need not envy the concentration 
of wealth so far as every-day comfort, refinement, 
justice for the masses are concerned, we must use 
every effort to see that connected therewith 
shall go the right ideals regarding the methods 
that may be used in the accumulation of 
wealth and the unselfishness of the use to 
be made of it. We must encourage still more 
the development in the community of the 
[84] 



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ideals of justness and righteousness which will 
make our added comforts and refining luxuries 
tend steadily and strongly toward the moral and 
spiritual uplifting of mankind. 



THE END 



THE MCCLURE PRE8S, KEW YORE 







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